Eugene Delgaudio, president of Public Advocate says: "The twisted goals of the Homosexual Lobby never change. Just by analyzing their efforts to incorporate themselves into all walks of life including peaceful cultural events like the St. Patrick's Day parade in Cincinnati is an attempt to freak people out for the sake of freaking people out."

J.R. Dunn of the American thinker says

"St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, and with it the annual debate over whether open participation by marchers associated with the LGBT (sorry if I forgot an initial there) movement should be allowed to appear."

The epicenter of this year's conflict was Cincinnati, where the sponsors of the parade stood firm and refused to allow openly gay marchers to take part. This is evidently one of the few occasions in which the marchers were told flat-out that were not wanted due to sexual preference.

The uproar over the rejection was marked with the standard arguments: while the parade may be Irish and Catholic, there are gays who are Irish, and gays who are Catholic. If other types of organizations are allowed to march, then why not gay societies? Isn't this exactly what blacks endured during the segregation epoch?

These objections have been answered so many times that they need not be answered again. Instead we'll deal with a question that, to my knowledge, has generally gone unasked: why the St. Paddy's Day parade?

It's true that there are several reasons to target it: it originates in a Catholic feast, and the Church remains a major bï¿½te noire to the gay movement. Ireland, largely thanks to its long-established matriarchy, remains one of the most heterosexual societies on the planet.

But gay organizations claim not be targeting the parade and attendant festivities at all. They merely want to join the fun - to accompany other marchers, to share in the excitement and camaraderie, while waving their signs, chanting their slogans, and dressing up in head-to-toe leather, purple afro wigs, and giant penis costumes.